


Springtime in the Rockies

by StellarLibraryLady



Series: Star Trek Incandescent Hearts [6]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: AU, Clueless McCoy, Clueless Spock, Explicit Language, First Kiss, Fluff, Humor, Incandescent Hearts (Star Trek Series), Lichen Forests, Love, M/M, Romance, Scheming Kirk, Secret love, Star Trek Humor, alien fungus, secret romance, spones - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 00:49:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9942788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StellarLibraryLady/pseuds/StellarLibraryLady
Summary: McCoy is distracted and unsettled and doesn't know what is wrong with himself, and Spock seems to be having the same symptoms.  Could the same alien fungus found in lichen forests on a recently explored planet have infected both of them?





	

McCoy supposed he really should just go on to bed. There wasn’t any way that the Vulcan was going to show up on his doorstep tonight. McCoy apparently had just read the signals wrong earlier at dinner.

But McCoy had seemed so certain. One moment he and Spock and Jim Kirk and some of the others serving together on the Enterprise were just having a friendly evening meal together in the mess hall, and the next McCoy had been riveted against the back of his chair by Spock’s piercing dark eyes. Eyes that seemed to bore into his soul, eyes that had not blinked, eyes that demanded an oath from McCoy. Instead of an oath sworn, though, all McCoy could do was stare with his mouth ajar. Hell, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think, how could he swear some oath he didn’t understand? Whatever had the Vulcan wanted?

All he knew, it was a demand from Spock, as if McCoy had little say in the matter. That wasn’t an oath or a pledge. That was surrender. Unconditional surrender. And Spock was wanting it from McCoy. Now!

And McCoy had almost wet his pants.

Or had almost met the Vulcan halfway across the top of the table so they could clutch at each other while food and dishes and alarmed fellow diners had been scattered every which way by their wrestling about.

Or had almost stood, lowered his slacks and skivvies, turned, spread his legs, bent, braced himself for impact, and waited for the Vulcan to mount him with a running leap. A hard running leap.

That would have really startled their fellow diners and would have had Jim Kirk masturbating for a week. After he'd finished laughing out loud for joy, that is. McCoy had no idea how long he himself could’ve lived on that memory. Just thinking of what might have happened was making sweat pop out on his forehead now, and he had to wet his lips to moisturize them.

Or to prepare them, he realized with a moan. At this stage, he really didn't know. Hell, he didn't really know what was wrong with him. He couldn't recall anything in the medical textbooks that came anywhere close to his symptoms.

Of course, that could be the crux of his problem. Remembering. Volumes could have been written about his symptoms, and he had simply forgotten.

It seemed that McCoy had been having a lot of trouble with memory and focusing lately.

McCoy remembered that he’d gone to dinner that evening on remote. He’d been feeling that way for a number of days now, and he didn’t understand the reason for the numbing distraction he seemed to be under. Ever since he and Spock had returned from their fact finding mission to that new, unexplored planet, McCoy had lived in this cloud of miasma. He’d seemed so preoccupied and knew that his condition bothered Kirk. 

It had happened before, and recently. Just a few days ago, in fact.

McCoy had paused for breath in his soliloquy, and Kirk had said something. “Hmm? What, Jim?”

“We’re on the bridge now, Dr. McCoy. I believe that while we’re on duty, you should allow me the professional courtesy of addressing me by my rank and surname.”

Ordinarily, Jim Kirk didn’t act so prissy, but the man was right. McCoy wondered what he had been rambling on about before Kirk had brought him up short. Kirk had probably done this more to shut McCoy up than to go by a military rule book. McCoy had just been spewing nonsense. Apparently. He had no idea what he'd been saying, though. He had just been making it up as he went. He figured that if he was talking he didn’t have to be listening to himself, also. That was where Jim came in, to do the listening.

What convoluted book on philosophy contained that unique pearl of logic?

McCoy also became aware that he had been staring, staring intently at something while treating Jim Kirk to his rambling thoughts.

“Sorry, J--" He tore his eyes back to his commanding officer seated on the conn on the bridge of the Enterprise. "Ah, Captain Kirk. What was that again, sir? I was distracted.”

“Hmm. Well. I see.” Kirk turned to see what was in the range of McCoy’s vision, then he glanced back with a knowing look at McCoy. Then Jim Kirk had actually winked at him! Winked! “I understand that it’s Springtime in the Rockies back home, Bones. No wonder you've been affected.”

“What in the hell--” is that supposed to mean? McCoy finished in his head as his eyes swept around to see what Kirk had seen. When McCoy saw what he had been only moments before been staring at quite openly, his question had been strangled, half finished in his throat.

Only a blind man could have missed what had distracted McCoy. And why.

Spock was bent over his instruments as he monitored his station on the bridge. The most prominent view of the Vulcan was Spock’s outward and upward thrust hips. As skinny as he was, he managed to have stretched the material of his service slacks so that they revealed amazing details of his anatomy and suggested tantalizing speculation about other anatomical features supposedly hidden just from sight. A uniform was supposed to present an asexual view of a person, but not this uniform on this man on this day. Spock looked anything but asexual. Spock looked, looked--

Mercy! McCoy begged.

But Mother Nature was showing none today. She could really get to be such a bitch at times, especially when it came to McCoy and Spock. She'd planned to bring them up short for a long time now, and it looked like she was finally succeeding. She would take no prisoners. Her eyes were flint on flint, and her smile did nothing to hide her satisfaction.

They were going down!

And she meant that in every sense of the expression.

McCoy felt his face go warm, and it was not only from the view. It was from Jim’s knowing, flirty eyes. And from getting caught by Kirk. McCoy realized that his face must have been an open book, and that Spock‘s name was written on every page.

“I’ll take care of that immediately, Captain Kirk,” McCoy proclaimed as he turned on his heel and headed for the turbo lift. The quick glimpse of Kirk as he spun showed him an astonished face on Captain Kirk looking up at him.

Wonder what the hell Jim had been cackling about, McCoy wondered inside the turbo lift as he programmed in his destination for the hallway in front of Sickbay.

The turbo lift eventually stopped and McCoy stepped out. The hallway in front of Sickbay had changed while he was gone. There was a lot of machinery standing around, machinery that really didn‘t look like it belonged here.

“Dr. McCoy,” Scotty said in surprise. “May I help you, sir?”

McCoy looked around wildly. He was in Engineering.

Why in the hell had Engineering been moved up here?! And when?!

“Sir?” Scotty’s puzzlement deepened.

Oops! Retreat! Shift the blame!

“Damn turbo lift is acting up again,” McCoy muttered as he stepped back inside it. “Better get it checked.”

“Yes, sir,” Scotty replied in his best stunned robot voice. 

McCoy realized that he’d never known that Scotty’s eyes could open that widely or that his mouth could drop that far open. Wonder what Scotty’s problem was?

As the turbo lift door closed once more, McCoy saw the second man with amazement written on his face staring back at him. Funny, McCoy never thought that Kirk and Scotty looked that much alike. That must be what confusion and bewilderment must do for a man. McCoy bounced on the balls of his feet in glee. He had found the great equalizer among men! 

But he doubted if he could present his findings at any gathering of learned scientists and have them accept his thesis with seriousness. Damn picky scientists! How was he ever going to be able to become a well known researcher if the damn fools on the other end would never even let him have an opportunity to speak?!

“Dr. McCoy? Are you alright?”

“What?” McCoy asked as he looked around, disoriented. “Chapel. What’s the problem?”

“Well, you, sir. You stepped out of the turbo lift, then stopped. And stayed stopped. I was going to hail you, but then I realized that you didn’t even see me. It’s beginning to frighten me, sir.”

McCoy looked around and saw that he was standing in the hallway in front of Sickbay. “As well it should,” McCoy replied and walked around her to get to his office.

“But, Doctor--” Chapel started in confusion.

“Yes?” McCoy asked brusquely as he turned. “Do you have a problem, Chapel?”

“Well,” Chapel answered as diplomatically as she could. “Not with me, sir.”

“Then, who?!” McCoy barked and hoped that the bluff would work.

“Ah--”

“Well, spit it out!”

“Perhaps I was mistaken, sir.”

“Never mind, then. Let’s get to work, Chapel.”

“Yes, sir,” Chapel said, much relieved simply to follow her boss and not have to try to explain to him that she thought he was acting a little peculiar.

She shook her head.

A LITTLE peculiar?!

 

Then, as McCoy was in the deepest of his reminiscences back in his quarters late that evening, the buzzer sounded at his door. 

Let it be Spock!

Don’t let it be Spock!

Please!

But he didn’t know what he wanted to beg for.

With all the strength he could muster, McCoy said, “Come in,“ but his voice sounded awfully weak.

Of course, it was Spock, looking as uneasy as McCoy felt.

Spock entered and his eyes darted wildly about as if he was looking for the herd of wild zebras that McCoy apparently kept corralled in his room. He acted as if he expected to find anything and hoped to find nothing, not even McCoy.

In fact, Spock seemed befuddled and quite unlike his usual unruffled self.

Seeing Spock‘s condition helped to calm McCoy. “Yes, Mr. Spock?”

“This is a matter of a most delicate nature, Dr. McCoy.” He bit his lips together and his face flushed a deeper green.

“Yes?”

“I do not know quite how to tell you, Doctor. I appear to have contracted a strange malady.”

“Suppose you describe your symptoms.”

“I have noticed some problems with, ah, distraction lately. My mind seems to wander, and I have lost whole segments of time.”

“Hmm,” McCoy said thoughtfully and tried to hide the astonishment on his own face. This sounded like what he himself was experiencing! “What else?”

“Well, the other day on the bridge, I quite suddenly became aware of papers of mine on the floor. I know that I stared at them because I thought that they were still in my hands. But somehow they had reached the floor. I do not know how that happened.”

“What were the other circumstances? Who else was on the bridge? Perhaps we can reconstruct the scene and discover the problem.”

“Well, it was the usual bridge crew for that shift. The only different one was you.”

“Me?”

“And the captain seemed to be trying to extract information from you that you were for some reason not providing him. It was very distracting. I know that I looked up and saw you. Then I remember little else. I suppose that is when I dropped the papers. Perhaps I forgot that I was holding them and simply let them drop. If so, that would be very disconcerting behavior. Do you recall anything about that scene that would help solve this puzzle for me?”

McCoy remembered the day, but he couldn’t very well tell the Vulcan that he himself had been distracted by staring at the Vulcan’s hindquarters in more than a medical way.

He had no idea what to tell Spock without disclosing his own personal interest. McCoy knew how far that would get him with Spock. The Vulcan would simply say that McCoy’s lusts were an Earthling weakness and let it go as that. Spock would not want any of McCoy’s tender feelings directed toward him.

What could McCoy say that he could use to save himself?

Then Spock saved him.

“Jim thought that you could help me,” Spock continued. “That was why I was looking at you so intently at dinner tonight.”

“Oh, I, I didn’t know.” Spock had been staring at him because Spock wanted his help, not because Spock wanted him. Disappointment crushed down on McCoy. The story of his life. No romance for McCoy. Again.

But Spock was rattling on, and McCoy forced himself to listen so he wouldn’t lose the thread of the discussion. The doctor concerned for his patient took over the man in heat. Perhaps that was the best relationship for the two of them. Doctor and patient.

“Doctor, I fear that I contracted a condition on that last uninhabited planet we visited. Well, it was inhabited, but by the very simplest of life forms. You will recall that nothing of the higher animal kingdoms were present.”

McCoy forced himself to remember. “Simple plant life, mainly. Lichens. Lots of varieties of lichens.”

“That is why I have decided that I must have been exposed to a fungal contaminant growing in the lichen forests. I thought perhaps that you had been exposed and affected, also, since you were down on that same planet with me. And now my suspicions are reinforced especially since the Captain explained that you have been experiencing many of the same symptoms of absentmindedness that I have been.”

McCoy frowned. “Oh? Jim told you that I have been distracted?”

“He said it was obvious.”

“Oh, he did, did he?” McCoy was starting to get angry at Kirk. Prissy Kirk!.

“He even had a name for it, but I have never heard of it in lectures or read of it in medical annuals.”

“Oh, and what is that?”

“Springtime in the Rockies. Have you ever heard of that condition, Doctor?”

Then suddenly it hit McCoy what Jim Kirk had been hinting at. He grinned.

“Yes. Yes, I have, Mr. Spock. And I believe that we were both affected, but I firmly believe that both of us are going to be fine. In fact, great!”

“I certainly hope so, Doctor. Can you explain it to me?”

“I believe I can. Tell me, have you been more aware of my presence lately?”

“What do you mean, Doctor?”

“Do you notice when I enter a room, or when I leave? Do you taste a new fruit and wonder if I would like it as much as you do? Would you like to spend more time with me? Ask me all sorts of questions about my childhood and my favorite color?”

“If you like Mozart over Brahms?” Spock asked, warming to McCoy’s subject. "Which is better on the tongue, red or white wine? If ‘Paradise Lost’ is the greatest book that has ever been written? Yes, I have wondered about questions like that recently and desired to know your opinion, even over my own. Is that a condition that was brought on by the fungus in the lichen forest, Doctor?”

McCoy grinned wisely. “No, something else caused it. I believe that it was brought on by our spending more time together. When we were down on that planet, we were thrown together constantly. Why, we even lived for days together in the same tiny room and learned to get along. We talked about hundreds of things including what frightened us and why we don’t like squid. We learned to know each other, Spock, and we became compatible and comfortable with each other. And apparently something else happened to us down there without our realizing it.”

“And what was that, Doctor?”

“Promise you won’t resign your commission, run out this door, and take a shuttle craft to the nearest planet that will have you and never see any of us again?”

“Why would I do any of that, Doctor?”

“Because you aren’t going to like what I’m going to tell you.” He frowned. “I’m not even sure I am going to appreciate it, but apparently it’s the only way I’ll ever have peace with myself again.”

“You will have to explain yourself, Doctor.”

“Jim called your malady ‘Springtime in the Rockies,’ correct?”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“Well, springtime in the Rocky Mountains of North America on Earth is when birds build nests and lay eggs to be hatched. Mama and Daddy mountain lions find each other on some towering peak and make arrangements for the next generation of mountain lions to be born. Fish spawn, weather is soft and warm, flowers bloom, Nature smiles. All is right with the world.”

Spock frowned. “I do not know what you are trying to tell me, Doctor, but you are not succeeding.”

“Then I’ll be more direct. We spent time together on that planet, Spock. We got to know each other as we had never known each other before. Then we came back to the Enterprise and have gone our separate ways. And now we are missing each other and what grew between us down on that planet. And we can't concentrate on anything else until we admit the truth to each other and to ourselves.”

The Vulcan still looked puzzled. "And that truth is what, Doctor?"

“Why, Spock, the answer is so simple. We fell in love. With each other.”

Spock blinked. McCoy didn’t know he could do that. It was one of the few displays of emotions he had ever seen out of the Vulcan.

“I know, Spock. I don’t know if I like the idea myself.” He shrugged. “But there it is. Springtime in the Rockies in all of its glory. And the kid had to figure it out for us.”

“Are you certain about all of this?”

If I’m wrong, I’m going to be the most disappointed person alive, McCoy thought. Because this Vulcan is one hunk, and I’d be the luckiest guy in the universe to get him in my bed. And in my heart.

“We’ll run a little experiment, Spock. You like testing theories, don’t you?”

“Of course, Doctor.”

“Alright, come over here and kiss me.”

“But--”

“Don‘t question. Just do it.”

Spock looked hesitant.

“Now!”

Spock continued to look hesitant as he neared McCoy, and his lips were almost chaste as they met McCoy’s. Then McCoy pulled his arms around Spock, and Spock got the idea that hugging was allowed. After that, he caught on real fast to what McCoy had been hinting at. Spock liked this experiment really well!

What time they had lost! Why hadn’t they done this back on that planet when they were living in those tiny quarters? They wouldn’t have been so bored then.

But now they made up for lost time, and the wait all seemed worthwhile.

McCoy eventually pulled away from Spock’s chest and looked up into his smoldering dark eyes.

“You recognize that outcomes may vary so we might have to run several more experiments, don‘t you?”

“That is only logical.”

McCoy looked at the Vulcan‘s inviting, slightly swollen lips through half closed eyes and realized that his own mouth was tender and sore. And he was certain that there were bruises already showing discolorations on their bodies. Bruises about the size of groping hands. 

““Okay, then.” McCoy breathed deeply as he glanced up into Spock's smoldering dark eyes again.

Spock looked at him with interest.

"Are you ready for the twenty-seventh trial, Vulcan?”

"I really believe that it is the twenty-eighth, Doctor."

"Shut up, Spock! And think of Mama and Papa mountain lions and what they do to bring the next generation of mountain lions into the world! Forget numbers!"

"But I do believe that this is probably how you lost count before," Spock murmured as he drew his arms around McCoy again.

"Shut up, Spock! You talk too much."

"Whatever you say, Doctor," Spock said and felt happiness tingling all over his body as McCoy touched him. "Your theories have been correct so far."

"Damn straight! Now let me see if I can make you forget all about theories."

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing dealing with Star Trek, including story lines and/or characters.  
> I also do not own anything of the 1937 movie "Springtime in the Rockies" starring Gene Autry, or of the song of the same title sung by Gene Autry, Hank Snow, The Sons of the Pioneers, Slim Whitman, and/or others.


End file.
